UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for greater accountability in battling AIDS ahead of World AIDS Day yesterday amid a worrying rise of the scourge in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.
His message was delivered as Geneva-based UNAIDS, the UN agency that coordinates the worldwide fight against the disease, reported 4.3 million new infections this year, 65 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa, along with major increases in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
"Accountability -- the theme of this World AIDS Day -- requires every president and prime minister, every parliamentarian and politician, to decide and declare that `AIDS stops with me,'" the outgoing UN secretary general said on Thursday.
PHOTO: AP
But he stressed that accountability was not just for those holding positions of power.
"It also applies to all of us. ... It requires fathers, husbands, sons and brothers to support and affirm the rights of women," Annan said. "And it requires every one of us to help bring AIDS out of the shadows and spread the message that silence is death."
The UN chief, who steps down at the end of this month after 10 years in office, said: "I made HIV-AIDS a personal priority in my work as secretary general. I called for the creation of a `war chest' of an additional seven to 10 billion dollars a year," he added. "As long as I have strength, I will keep spreading that message."
On the positive side, UNAIDS executive director Peter Piot cited "evidence of positive trends in young people's sexual behavior -- increased use of condoms, delay of sexual debut and fewer sexual partners."
UNAIDS pointed to declines in HIV prevalence among young people between 2000 and last year in several countries.
But Annan also stressed that in the 25 years since the first case was reported, AIDS has killed 25 million people and infected 40 million more.
An estimated 39.5 million people, many unaware of their status, are now living with HIV, the virus which causes AIDS, according to UNAIDS.
In South Africa, veteran Zulu leader Mangosutho Buthelezi, who has lost two children to AIDS, said Africa should stop sweeping the disease under the carpet.
"We have no alternatives. If we want our people to survive, if we want to get over this pandemic, we have to become upfront, open about it, including about sexuality," he said.
The spread of AIDS in Africa cannot be stopped without African men taking responsibility for their behavior, said Angelique Kidjo, a UNICEF goodwill ambassador.
"Men think they have the right ... to have multiple partners without protecting themselves," the singer from Benin said. "If African men don't decide to be in the vanguard to save their families ... no one will be able to save us."
Meanwhile, experts warned that AIDS success stories in Southeast Asia were in danger of being reversed.
A case in point is Thailand, where experts said the epidemic is evolving and hitting groups previously considered at low risk for contracting the disease.
In New Delhi, former US president Bill Clinton said on Thursday that his foundation had negotiated agreements to lower the price of HIV-AIDS treatment for children in poor countries.
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